Why me?
by vespertine dreams
Summary: This time, Chuck did stay in the car when they told him to and look how that turned out. Minor slash- Chuck / Casey. Reviews welcome.


Why me?

"Stay in the car, Chuck."

How many times had heard that? Chuck scowled at Casey's back as the man moved toward the building, half tempted to drive off in the car and leave them to walk home. He wouldn't, he knew, but he was tempted. Dammit, he wasn't a puppy that they could just tell to 'stay'.

Granted, he didn't always- ever- stay in the car when they told him to and, yes, he usually did manage to get into trouble when he followed them but that wasn't the point.

With a resigned sigh, Chuck settled himself in the driver's seat and waited like he had been told to. Casey's threats had been very specific this time; should he set even one foot out of the car, the next time he would be handcuffed to the door handle. Chuck had no desire to allow Casey to follow through on that one and so, for once, he stayed put.

For a while, he tried to see what was going on but the targets were inside the building and so there was nothing to see. He could hear an alarm in the distance, and the sound of someone yelling. That couldn't be it; his handlers were way more discreet than that.

_Note to self, next time bring a magazine_, he thought, getting bored. _Or my i-pod._ He fished around in the door pockets in the hope of finding some kind of a snack but came up empty handed. It was a work car, so he hadn't really expected anything. Casey had brought the Nerd-mobile, as Chuck thought of it, as it would be the last thing that anyone would suspect should they see it arrive.

He was just beginning to fall asleep, his head resting against the window, when the car door opened.

"Hey, that was quick-" Chuck opened his eyes in time to see the barrel of a gun aimed straight at him. "Oh crap; not good."

"No, not good," the scruffy man in jeans and a battered leather jacket told him, waving the gun just to remind Chuck it was still there. "Drive."

He was being carjacked? What the hell? Chuck swallowed hard, knowing that he was going to have to do it. He also knew, however, that when Casey and Sarah found him gone they were going to be pissed. At the present moment, it was a fifty-fifty split of who he was most concerned about- the gunman or Casey.

"I said, drive. Now."

Chuck did as he was told, wondering why he had picked today of all days to actually stay in the car.

----------

Sarah rounded the corner of the building first and came to a dead stop, causing Casey to almost run into her.

"What?" he demanded.

Sarah scanned the street in disbelief. "Where's the car?"

"Better question is, where's the doofus who should have been sitting _in_ the damn car?" Casey pointed out.

The sound of footsteps behind them, coming up on their position fast, made them both snap back into action. As they ran, Sarah pulled out a cell and called Chuck.

----------

Chuck's phone was ringing, Sarah's smiling face flashing up on the display.

"You know, if I don't get that, she'll just keep calling," he said.

The man shrugged his shoulders and picked up the phone, tossing it out of the window and then turning back to Chuck.

"Problem solved."

Chuck sighed. "Can I at least ask why you're doing this?"

"You talk too much, anyone ever tell you that?"

Chuck shut up, staring out of the window until he couldn't keep quiet any longer. He just couldn't help it; when he got nervous, he talked.

"Where are we going anyway? You could just take the car and I swear I wouldn't tell anyone. I mean, it's not like I even know who you are or anything."

The man glared at him and told him to take a right at the next junction, turning to look over his shoulder in case they were being followed. As he moved in his seat, however, he accidentally kicked the bag he had thrown into the foot space. The zipper on the holdall wasn't completely fastened and as he kicked it, Chuck caught a glimpse inside.

"Oh my god! That alarm was you! You stole that," he said, looking down at the bag and the bundles of money he could see inside before the man hastily fastened it again. "I'm an accessory!"

"You're going to be a dead accessory if you don't shut up. Damn cops," the man muttered to himself. "It's like they were already there; they couldn't have got there that fast. Armed cops."

Chuck had a sudden vision of what Casey and Sarah had been wearing when they had gone into the building, what their backup agents would also have been wearing- black combats, tac vests and armed with a similar type of gun to what SWAT carried...

He kept silent; no way was he going to tell the guy with the gun that they weren't cops, but some rather trigger-happy special forces soldiers and two secret agents.

----------

Once back at the castle and changed into something a little less noticeable, Casey got his car as Sarah checked the handheld tracker for the bug in Chuck's watch. She had got worried after she was unable to reach him on his cell- Chuck never went anywhere without that phone and he usually answered.

She climbed into Casey's Crown Vic and gave directions.

"Can't believe we've got to be chasing around after that idiot," Casey grumbled, but Sarah could see that he was as concerned as she was.

----------

Chuck saw the pick-up truck a split second before it pulled out in front of him and slammed the brakes on, the tyres screeching as the wheels locked. He might have had more chance to react had he not been distracted by the bag of money on the floor in the passenger side foot well. As it was, there was no chance of stopping in time, just of trying to minimise the damage. The little Nerd Herd car wouldn't be a match for the pick-up and he knew it and so Chuck swerved. He figured that if someone had to get hurt, it might as well be the gun-toting carjacker, and made sure that it was the passenger side of the car that took the brunt of the collision.

He was out and running before the car had even stopped moving, seeing an opportunity. He had fared pretty well, with nothing more than a few bruises and cuts from when the window has showered them with glass but the passenger side of the car was trashed. The door was crumpled and the side caved in, effectively pinning the man and preventing him getting out to pursue. Chuck had forgotten about the gun, however, though he was quickly reminded when a bullet zinged off one of the cars that had stopped to help.

With a rather girly yelp that he really hoped no one else had heard, Chuck ducked for cover.

----------

"How the hell does he do it?" Casey asked in disbelief, upon seeing the smashed up cars and the people all hiding from the bullets that occasionally fired from inside the Nerd-mobile.

He spotted Chuck hiding, sitting curled up beside one of the other cars, his back to the tyre and his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

"I'll get Bartowski, you get that guy," Casey said, getting out of the car and moving toward Chuck.

Sarah circled around and had the gun from their shooter in no time, his hands handcuffed to the window frame of the car just in time for the police to arrive.

"Bartowski, you hurt?" Casey frowned when Chuck didn't answer. "Chuck?"

Finally he looked up.

"That's it; I've had enough," he said, his voice gaining pitch in a sign that Casey had come to recognise as him getting upset. "I stayed in the car like you told me and look what happened. That nutcase pointed a gun at me! If I get out of the car, people _still_ shoot at me! At least if I'm out of the car, I can get out of the way of the bullets."

Casey helped Chuck to his feet and felt that his hand was shaking. Any anger he might have had toward Chuck for leaving them behind before had evaporated as Chuck told him what had happened.

"Come on, I'll take you home."

Chuck glanced toward the wrecked cars. "I probably should talk to the cops, and I don't know what I'm going to tell Big Mike about the car," he said, but Casey shook his head.

"Walker can deal with all of that."

Chuck let Casey take him home, realising belatedly that they were heading toward Casey's apartment rather than his own.

"Ellie's out of town, isn't she?" Casey asked when he mentioned it. "'Didn't think you'd want to go back to an empty apartment."

He didn't, but it surprised him that Casey had thought of it. Following Casey inside, he heard the door shut behind them and heaved a sigh of relief. He had been more shaken up by the events of earlier than he cared to admit to but now that he was inside, in private, he felt it all come flooding back. He just stood there as Casey went and put his weapons away, thinking.

Chuck felt warm, strong arms around him and heard someone tell him that he was safe now. A tiny voice in the back of his mind asked why Casey was being so nice to him all of a sudden but he didn't really care. It was comforting, he thought, relaxing for the first time in hours.

"I thought you'd been hurt when I saw you down near that car."

Chuck met Casey's intense gaze, seeing the genuine worry there, mixed with something else.

"You were worried about me?"

"'Course I was," Casey told him. "I always am. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

Chuck shifted in Casey's embrace enough to slide his arms around Casey's neck. He pulled the taller man down, closer, until he could brush a hesitant kiss over Casey's lips, half expecting the NSA agent to get angry with him for it. Casey didn't. A slow smile appeared on his face as he dipped his head to kiss Chuck properly this time.

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End.


End file.
